Tools

"... A mechanism of perceptual analysis by which infants derive meaning from perceptual activity is described. Infants use this mechanism to redescribe perceptual information into image-schematic format. Image-schemas create conceptual structure from the spatial structure of objects and their movements, ..."

A mechanism of perceptual analysis by which infants derive meaning from perceptual activity is described. Infants use this mechanism to redescribe perceptual information into image-schematic format. Image-schemas create conceptual structure from the spatial structure of objects and their movements, resulting in notions such as animacy, inanimacy, agency, and containment. These earliest meanings are nonpropositional, analogical representations grounded in the perceptual world of the infant. In contrast with most perceptual processing, which is not analyzed in this fashion, redescription into image-schematic format simplifies perceptual information and makes it potentially accessible for purposes of concept formation and thought. In addition to enabling preverbal thought, image-schemas provide a foundation for language acquisition by creating an interface between the continuous processes of perception and the discrete nature of language. When you keep putting questions to Nature and Nature keeps saying &quot;no, &quot; it is not unreasonable to suppose that somewhere among the things you believe there is something that isn&apos;t true. (Fodor, 1981, p. 316) One of the least understood developments in infancy is how

by
David Bailey, Jerome Feldman, Srini Narayanan, George Lakoff
- IN PROCEEDINGS OF THE 19TH COGNITIVE SCIENCE SOCIETY CONFERENCE, 1997

"... This paper presents an implemented computational model of lexical development for the case of action verbs. A simulated agent is trained by an informant giving labels to the agent's actions (here hand motions) and the system learns to both label and carry out similar actions. Computational ..."

This paper presents an implemented computational model of lexical development for the case of action verbs. A simulated agent is trained by an informant giving labels to the agent&apos;s actions (here hand motions) and the system learns to both label and carry out similar actions. Computationally, the system employs a novel form of active representation and is explicitly intended to be neurally plausible. The learning methodology is a version of Bayesian model merging (Omohundro, 1992). The verb learning model is placed in the broader context of the L0 project on embodied natural language and its acquisition.

"... Cognitive Science, whose genesis was interdisciplinary, shows signs of reverting to a disjoint collection of fields. This paper presents a compact, theory-free task that inherently requires an integrated solution. The basic problem is learning a subset of an arbitrary natural language from picture-s ..."

Cognitive Science, whose genesis was interdisciplinary, shows signs of reverting to a disjoint collection of fields. This paper presents a compact, theory-free task that inherently requires an integrated solution. The basic problem is learning a subset of an arbitrary natural language from picture-sentence pairs. We describe a very specific instance of this task and show how it presents fundamental (but not impossible) challenges to several areas of cognitive science including vision, language, inference and learning. 1 Introduction touchstone (tuch&apos; ston&apos;). n. 1. a black siliceous stone used to test the purity of gold and silver by the color of the streak produced on it by rubbing it with either metal. 2. a test or criterion for the qualities of a thing. ---Syn. 2. standard, measure, model, pattern. Among the things that cognitive science has studied most are visual perception, language, inference, and learning [Posner, 1989]. However, these are often studied as if they were isolat...

"... A Text-Based Intelligent System should provide more in-depth information about the contents of its corpus than does a standard information retrieval system, while at the same time avoiding the complexity and resource-consuming behavior of detailed text understanders. Instead of focusing on discov ..."

A Text-Based Intelligent System should provide more in-depth information about the contents of its corpus than does a standard information retrieval system, while at the same time avoiding the complexity and resource-consuming behavior of detailed text understanders. Instead of focusing on discovering documents that pertain to some topic of interest to the user, an approach is introduced based on the criterion of directionality (e.g., Is the agent in favor of, neutral, or opposed to the event?). A method is described for coercing sentence meanings into a metaphoric model such that the only semantic interpretation needed in order to determine the directionality of a sentence is done with respect to the model. This interpretation method is designed to be an integrated component of a hybrid information access system. 1 Introduction In the light of the increasing availability of computer-accessible full text, an important goal of a Text-Based Intelligent System is to provide a me...

"... In order to understand and create human-level intelligence I have developed the Polyscheme cognitive architecture to build systems that combine several representation and inference schemes when they think. ..."

In order to understand and create human-level intelligence I have developed the Polyscheme cognitive architecture to build systems that combine several representation and inference schemes when they think.

"... The dynamics model, which is based on L. Talmy’s (1988) theory of force dynamics, characterizes causation as a pattern of forces and a position vector. In contrast to counterfactual and probabilistic models, the dynamics model naturally distinguishes between different cause-related concepts and expl ..."

The dynamics model, which is based on L. Talmy’s (1988) theory of force dynamics, characterizes causation as a pattern of forces and a position vector. In contrast to counterfactual and probabilistic models, the dynamics model naturally distinguishes between different cause-related concepts and explains the induction of causal relationships from single observations. Support for the model is provided in experiments in which participants categorized 3-D animations of realistically rendered objects with trajectories that were wholly determined by the force vectors entered into a physics simulator. Experiments 1–3 showed that causal judgments are based on several forces, not just one. Experiment 4 demonstrated that people compute the resultant of forces using a qualitative decision rule. Experiments 5 and 6 showed that a dynamics approach extends to the representation of social causation. Implications for the relationship between causation and time are discussed.

"... Conceptual projection from one mental space to another always involves projection to "middle" spaces---abstract "generic" middle spaces or richer "blended" middle spaces. Projection to a middle space is a general cognitive process, operating uniformly at different level ..."

Conceptual projection from one mental space to another always involves projection to &quot;middle&quot; spaces---abstract &quot;generic&quot; middle spaces or richer &quot;blended&quot; middle spaces. Projection to a middle space is a general cognitive process, operating uniformly at different levels of abstraction and under superficially divergent contextual circumstances. Middle spaces are indispensable sites for central mental and linguistic work. The process of blending is in particular a fundamental and general cognitive process, running over many (conceivably all) cognitive phenomena, including categorization, the making of hypotheses, inference, the origin and combining of grammatical constructions, analogy, metaphor, and narrative. Blending is not secondary to these phenomena but prerequisite, and its operation is not restricted to any one of these phenomena. We give evidence for blending from a wide range of data that includes everyday language, idioms, literary metaphor, non-verbal conceptualization of ac...